


Wonderment

by TheColorBlue



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Russia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-27 00:18:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8380087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheColorBlue/pseuds/TheColorBlue
Summary: When Victor was a child, he wasn’t—obsessed wouldn’t have been the right word, but he really, very much loved Kinder Surprise Eggs.





	1. Kinder Egg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired by [Red Herring](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8311513) by Metallic_Sweet to write a similarly realistic depiction of Victor's Russian background, so you should definitely also go check out their work!! <3

When Victor was a child, he wasn’t—obsessed wouldn’t have been the right word, but he really, very much loved Kinder Surprise Eggs. Him and his younger brother might have been treated with the toy-containing sweets once, maybe twice a month. They’d crack open the chocolate shells to reveal the golden plastic capsules, the toy-containing “egg yolks”—and of course the toys in the Kinder Eggs were a hundred times better than anything made nowadays, the production value cheapening. 

Victor had a box where he kept all the plastic toys: frogs, penguins, hippos, alligators. Little animal characters doing sports, dressed up in different costumes. He had a little ice-skating frog that he took with him to the ice skating rink for a several years. It was his “good luck charm.” He kept it with him even when he was maybe too old to need a plastic frog good luck charm around with him. He lost the little frog a month before his second competition in the World Junior Championships. A month later, he had won the Junior Championships at the age of fourteen, the youngest ever champion. 

He decided then, sitting in the hotel room afterwards, wrapped in a towel and cozy from a near-scalding, hot bath: he didn’t need good luck charms anyway. He had carried around a plastic frog, but now he had become a prince. 

He started growing out his hair. He had been rebellious before, but maybe the gold medals really were starting to make him feel invincible, like a rock star. 

Two years later, he had bought his beloved Makkachin, his sweet poodle. 

He didn’t need animals around for good luck. But having one around as a friend. Well, that was all right. 

-

When Victor was child, his parents had run a small dry goods store. They lived in St. Petersburg. They had a small grocer store, and they also owned a dacha, a small plot of land that Victor’s uncle helped them care for, out in the exurbs. They grew all their fresh vegetables on that precious plot of land. Victor, because of his ice skating, was exempted from any responsibility with the farming, but weekend trips to the dacha were practically mandatory for keeping food on the table. His parents were always talking, in hushed, grim voices, when the boys were playing; about money. About the criminals they had to pay so as to not endanger their business. About the trips Victor’s uncle would make to West Europe with his big truck, coming back with food and alcohol and toys that people would pay for. 

Victor heard less and less about all of this the older he got. When he wasn’t doing his schooling, he was at the ice skating rink training, and there wasn’t so much time to loiter around at home doing nothing; his younger brother playing video games on his handheld console or out playing with his friends, like a normal child, instead of a star athlete. 

Victor didn’t know if he heard less of his parent’s worries because the problems actually went away, or if it was because he was seeing less of his family. 

When he started winning the larger monetary prizes of the international circuits in his later teens, and getting sponsorships, and media events—the money went back to his family, to pay for a spacious flat, to pay for food, to travel, to pay for whatever they wanted. And when they didn’t need the money anymore, Victor started paying for luxuries for himself. He bought the food that he wanted to eat, and the clothes that he wanted to wear. 

-

Once, when Victor was twenty-one, he walked into a candy shop, scarf up around his face in the cold of winter, designer sunglasses on even with the long nights, and he looked at all the bins and jars and shelves filled with candy.

He didn’t buy from the jars and the bins. He bought several boxes of Kinder Surprise Eggs, more than he could hold in his two hands.

He took them home with him and lay out on the couch of his flat, Makkachin climbed all on top of him, his sweet friend; and Victor lay there curled up with his dog and cracked open just one. Curious and wondering. What kind of surprise he would find, inside.


	2. Onsen

The family dacha used to be mostly plots for fruits and vegetables. There had been a small, one-story cabin where everyone slept. There wasn’t even any electricity or running water in it. Fresh water had to be drawn from a well. Victor remembered being very small and being afraid to go out to do his nature calls at night. Who knew what was out there, in the dark, even if he really, really needed to go pee.

When Victor became more serious about skating, he wouldn’t go with the family on the weekend dacha trips, except on rare occasions, or holidays. He stayed with the family of another skating student and spent his weekends on the ice. 

Nowadays. Victor being richer and all. The family dacha had been rebuilt, with a beautiful two-story little summerhouse, painted white and blue. Less of the land was used for produce, and Victor still teased his papa about continuing to grow the strawberry, cabbages, and potatoes when in all honesty it was easier to buy them from the store. You didn’t have to worry about working the land, weeding, watering, harvesting and then preserving the fruits of your labor, if you didn’t plan on eating it right away, jarred as pickles and preserves. 

His papa just said that Victor, of all people, should know about the satisfaction of putting physical labor into something. Maybe they were doing different kinds of labor, but nobody got something from nothing. You got healthy from being out in the open air. Your fruits and vegetables became delicious and healthy from being grown the old-fashioned way. 

Victor just watched his papa putter around the garden, and then Victor smiled and shrugged, and went to join his mama, who was putting out lunch on the porch. That had been the last time Victor was back at the dacha with family. He had been twenty-five, in the summertime. His younger brother had brought his girlfriend from university. Victor hadn’t been dating for a while. He flirted all the time like he was on fire, but he didn’t feel like he had the energy anymore to sustain that kind of relationship and concentrate on his career at the same time. Victor watched his brother, Pyotr slouching there with his girlfriend, talking about something in his field, computer programming, his hands waving around, and the two of them clearly wrapped up in each other, and Victor smiled, and he talked to his mama about how he was doing, the places he traveled and competed, and yes he was taking care of himself, yes mama; and after lunch he went to take Makkachin on a walk. If you walked out to the edge of the village there were woods you could forage for mushrooms and berries. Victor didn’t much look hard for anything. He walked with Makkachin and watched his sweet poodle investigate every rock, pebble, and stick, taking out his phone to take a photo of Makkachin being adorable. And then he went over to scrub his hands through his dog’s soft fur while Makkachin pawwed and snuggled at him happily. Everything quiet, out in the woods. Then going back, because Victor had told his papa that he’d go with him to the sauna. 

That was two years ago.

Two years later he was scrubbing himself off before stepping into the Japanese onsen, the hot springs. The whole excursion: sprung on a lunatic whim, an idea in his head. He sat in the water and put his towel on his head the way he’d seen other bathers do it, and then closed his eyes for a moment. Breathing in the steam. 

The last time he’d seen Yuuri in person. 

He thought. 

He remembered the moment very clearly. That sad, depressed-looking young person, standing amongst the crowds. 

Did you ever look at someone, and find yourself wanting to look longer. Victor hadn’t wanted to look long at anyone like that, not for a very long time. It seemed, all the time these days; that Victor was perpetually moving. Feeling absent. Absent-minded. Distracted. Like he was forgetting what it was that was important, to hang onto anymore. He smiled and flirted with anyone and everyone around him to make himself feel better. See, how he could make anyone like him, even when he was being a bit of an ass and he knew it himself. 

He took pictures of himself and everything around him, too much time on his Instagram. 

He liked it, the instantaneous, easy pleasure and gratification. 

The photos on his Instagram, like some kind of accomplishment. Maybe someone to listen to what he was saying, the several thousand followers on it. 

When Yuuri thundered into view.

Victor looked up at Yuuri. He smiled. He stood up naked, because he could tell that Yuuri liked the view, his face going all flushed and charming with it. 

Was he being facetious again. Yakov probably would have said so. 

But he liked being there, in that Japanese hot springs, in that charming onsen where you could wear those light cotton robes, and sit in charming matt-covered rooms and eat rice while sitting on the floor. He liked the couple who ran the place, who were Yuuri’s parents, and behaved like they were welcoming guests into their own home. He liked looking at Yuuri, who looked as if he was about to suffer an aneurysm.

He liked being. There.


	3. Agape

Victor had suspected that he would like Yuuri very much, that unassuming young man who made music with the movement of his body.

—He hadn’t expected to almost immediately fall into adorations over Yuuri. 

Victor flirted with everyone, because he liked to. 

He flirted intensely with Yuuri almost immediately because he practically felt compelled to. Victor was, by nature, a greedy man. He wanted, most importantly, to be Yuuri’s coach, to encourage and cultivate that talent. On the other hand, he also wanted to be Yuuri’s lover, and he’d had that thought from day one in Japan. It had probably started when Yuuri’s father took one look at Victor, beamed, and said, “Ah, so you’re the handsome foreigner who is plastered all over my son’s walls. I’d let you see for yourself, but Yuuri is still asleep. My wife will probably have him up before long though, to shovel out the snow." 

They let Makkachin loose to run in the newly fallen snow, and then Mr. Katsuki showed Victor to the bathing facilities.

-

Alas. Professionalism suggested that Victor should only pursue only one or the other, the coach or the boyfriend role. 

But Victor was greedy. 

He couldn’t keep his hands off of Yuuri.

Well, no, that was a lie: he could restrain himself, after Yuuri had pulled away, blushing profusely. But also Victor was disappointed. Yuuri seemed to be some measure of deeply, sexually repressed. But maybe this was for the better. What was the word Victor was looking for again. The word that should have been describing his ideal behavior. Ah, yes. Professionalism. 

Hmm. But on the other hand; surely, he was being obvious enough? Asking Yuuri about any previous lovers. Touching his hands. His face. 

Yuuri shot away, and Victor tried not to show his disappointment too obviously.

What was the word. Professionalism? Something of that nature. 

-

Of course Victor had slept with men before. He’d even briefly dated a man. Very secretive, of course. One couldn’t be a Russian ice skating icon and a homosexual, it just wasn’t a done thing. The junior skater Mila, although she was just-turned eighteen now—well, it wasn’t that long ago that she was joking around with Victor, about how he couldn’t advertise his admiration of good-looking men as a positive thing, it would be too much homosexual propaganda, wouldn’t it? Showing off her sense of black humor. Mila was very much a lesbian, but in the last couple of years, promoting lgbt issues to minors in Russia was considered a crime of propaganda. 

When Mila had picked Yuri up like a baby; or maybe more like picking up an angry cat; when she had cooed over him and asked if their queer proclivities made Yuri want to run away, the little cherub that he was, Yuri had just hissed at them both and said that they were crazy. Why did everyone care so much about sex anyway? It was stupid and beyond him.

He’d tried to escape from Mila’s arms, but she was too strong. He could only get away when she felt like letting him go, and that took a few minutes. 

-

Victor would have liked to say that Yuuri found something of himself, sexually, when he finally danced his “Eros” performance. Victor would have liked to say that, but it was also hard to tell; afterwards, when the music was over, and life started again, and Yuuri still didn’t seem to want to be Victor’s boyfriend.

But what was the word. 

Professionalism. 

-

The other choice that Yuuri could have had. Agape. 

Victor believed in God. He didn’t much go to church, but for some reason he very much liked the idea of God, as a form, or some essence, of unconditional love. 

_Is this what God eats?_ he liked to exclaim over particularly delicious food. Love of pork cutlet bowls, it felt like. Or choreographing the “Agape” sequence, his hands clasped in supplication as he moved through the music. 

He didn’t believe that God, whatever form that God would take, would regard his love of men to be awful or sinful. How could that be, when he derived such joy from it? When he would take a year off, to find inspiration in the heart of another man, to support him in that way, to help Yuuri become the ice skater that he was capable of being—

Besides, wouldn’t God like honesty? 

Victor believed in honesty, in not concealing that blunt nature of himself from anyone, especially if it would help them become stronger. 

That was how he showed his love. 

-

Victor lay on his bed, curled up next to Makkachin, his beloved dog. Makkachin had been going off sometimes to spend the nights in Yuuri’s bedroom. Victor encouraged it. Maybe it meant that he’d have a lonely night or two, but he liked the idea of Makkachin worming his fluffy way into Yuuri’s life. And then afterwards, when Victor cuddled Makkachin, he liked to imagine that by some extension, he was also being allowed to cuddle Yuuri as well. Ridiculous as that sounded. 

Victor lay in the dark of the room, and his phone lit up from on his nightstand. It was a text message from his mama, hoping that he was doing well in Japan. Victor looked at it, and then put the phone back down again. 

God would have liked honesty, but Victor had never told his parents. Not in so many words. He’d tried to show it, maybe. The routine he’d done, with the androgynous skating costume, his long hair. The way he flirted with anyone of any gender, where he was going to be caught by the cameras. Showing it in that way. But his parents had never talked about it, or asked him about it. Or asked about grandchildren. Or anything of that nature at all. They asked him if he was doing well, eating enough, about his competitions. 

Victor ate plenty. And he drank plenty, and could hold his alcohol, and he soaked in hot springs, and get to see so many exciting things. Ninja castles. Tree-lined streets, pink with sakura blossoms. Even Yuuri, that peculiar, talented skater hadn’t chased him away yet. His life was still full of surprises, it seemed. He was happy wasn’t he? He was—

He pressed his nose into Makkachin’s fur, as the poodle lay there, tail thumping, getting all of the attention. And Victor thought at the very least, he was content. He felt less. Distracted, lately. 

He was content, he decided. 

And surely, that was more than enough.


End file.
